Over at Reason Katherine Mangu-Ward takes a look at “Secret Money from God Knows Where” and notes that perhaps the biggest upside to come from the increased independent money (read: “speech”) in this year’s election is increased competition against the established power structures of the two major parties: One upshot of increased spending by […]

So complicated that even the government doesn’t understand them. As remarkable as that conclusion may sound, my colleague Robert Frommer has a piece in the Denver Post demonstrating exactly that. The piece tells the story of “Clear the Bench,” an independent grassroots organization that came together to oppose the retention of four Colorado […]

Proponents of campaign finance laws are generally quick to denigrate or dismiss as alarmist arguments that the regulation of political speech regarding elections will lead the country down a slippery slope in which the government will eventually seek to control all—or at least the vast majority of—political speech. As ESPN’s Lee Corso might […]

On Monday, my colleague Paul Sherman argued a motion for temporary injunction in a case we filed in Florida recently challenging PAC requirements that are imposed on groups that want to join together to speak out for and against ballot initiatives. Under the law, when two or more people join together to spend more than $500 […]

We at MakeNoLaw.org (and at IJ in general) often criticize the courts for not carrying out their constitutional role as a check on the other branches of government, so it’s nice every once in a while to be able to cite an example of a court doing what it is supposed to. That happened in […]

We’ve pointed out before that if modern disclosure laws had existed 200 years ago, Madison, Hamilton and Jay would not have been able to publish The Federalist Papers without filling out a lot of forms first. The good folks at Reason have put together a faux campaign ad making the same point. This is […]

Over at the Center for Competitive Politics blog, Brad Smith has a great post on how SpeechNow Groups are making some races more competitive by helping challengers overcome the natural advantages of incumbents. Go read it right now.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said something quite extraordinary the other day. In defending President Obama’s attacks on the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s temerity to actually engage in political speech Gibbs remarked: “There’s no reason to back off,” he said. “If there are organizations raising tens of millions of dollars who won’t tell us […]

In the spirit of Citizen Speech month, MakeNoLaw.org is proud to present story about a political entrepreneur featured in the Institute’s recent Keep Out report: Diana Hsieh was a blogger when few people knew what the term meant. A passionate advocate for individual rights, she launched her now-popular blog Noodlefood in 2002 while working […]